Category Archives: Good things!

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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder…

\”Beauty is in the eye of the beholder means that different people will find different things beautiful and that the differences of opinion don\’t matter greatly.\”

So I was reading a post over at her bad mother .  Strangely enough I was talking to him about the time that my psycho ex boyfriends mom was and the time she said to me:\”You know Stephanie, you have a really nice smile.  Oh Thanks!  Although you could stand to loose a few pounds off your thighs.  *come again?*\” At least I know where he got it from.  I was maybe 15 or 16 at the time.  Anyway, hearing comments like that at any age is somewhat damaging, hearing it when you\’re in your early teens?  Damn near suicidal.   You see I had a really awkward time growing up.  I always looked different, growing up in a small town made my red hair that much more of a rarity, not to mention my freckles and my last name pretty much made me a prime target for being teased.  Oh yeah lets not forget I was the only one in my grade four class that wore a bra.  A real bra, not one of them training bra deals.  I was sassy but brutally shy on so. many. levels.  Cambridge was a bore, I grew up a little, learned to appreciate myself for who I was to a degree but I wanted more.  I got the utmost thrill from being bad (Sorry mom! I love you), rebel without a clue essentially sums it up.

I met Garnet when I was 15. He lived in Guelph which was a considerably bigger city that Cambridge and was everything that I wasn\’t.  We broke up after a few months, although we still had a few mutual friends in common and to make a long story short ended up getting back together later that summer at a friends birthday party.  The abuse started when I was about 16.  I was (and still am) a very stubborn, independent person with too much pride.  I should have ended it after his first attempt to kill me that day, but for some reason unbeknown to me at the time, I stayed.  Looking back on it now as a rational adult, I can see it so clearly.  At that age, its not so blatantly obvious.  He constantly berated me for the way I looked, the way I dressed, what I ate, how much I weighed, how much time I spent at the gym (too little for him apparently).  Essentially he took my self esteem and destroyed it.  I allowed him to control me and how I seen myself.  I. hated. myself. a. lot.  Case in point.  I obsessed over how I looked, what I ate and essentially had a borderline eating disorder.  I look back at pictures from that time period and of course I would kill to have the body I had then.  I however have since learned to accept myself for the person I am and I like me.  Now.  However back then, I loathed myself on so. many. levels.  Especially when you hear things from someone who claims to love you that they\’re repulsed by you, they\’re not physically attracted to you and so forth.

There\’s a huge correlation between an abusive relationship & how one views themselves.  I\’ve been asked countless times why I stayed.  That\’s a valid, yet totally loaded question.  Like I\’ve said on numerous occasions, its hard impossible to comprehend when your on the outside looking in.  Its something that you know in your heart is wrong, yet your so destroyed inside, mentally and emotionally that you don\’t have the courage, strength or the will to leave.  Your life is no longer your own, its dominated by the skewed way you view yourself, fear and having it drilled into your head time and time again that no man will want you looking/acting the way you do.  After a while you start to believe it.  Really it boils down to control, an insatiable need for it at all costs.  That is one key component to the mindset of an abuser.  I have since learned that its them who can\’t live without you, them who feels that they will be nothing if you leave.  God forbid if you try and obtain a mind of your own, the strength to stand on your own two feet and live your life the way you choose to.

I\’ll never forget the day we broke up.  I called him, he was crying and carrying on saying that I should have been upstairs with him (we lived in the same apt building) not waiting for my date to arrive.  I said no to him for the first time ever.  The cry stopped immediately and he said what?  I said no, no I will NOT come upstairs to be with you.  He then says to me \”Stephie, you finally stuck up to me, that\’s all I ever wanted you to do.\” Right, so that gives you just cause to beat me down on so many levels?  Anyway needless to say, the euphoria I felt at that moment is still to this day indescribable.  I finally felt for the first time that I and I alone had gained some control of my life and that was and still is to this day the best feeling ever.

I still on occasion have moments where I hear his voice in my head when i\’m having a bad day.  Every once in a while, those damn image issues come creeping up on me and I try to ignore them and most of the time I succeed.  I am who I am and while I am not perfect, I am perfectly flawed and in spite of it all; I have learned to not only accept myself but love myself for who I am.  I refuse to obsess about it, although I do know that I should pay far greater attention to taking better care of myself overall.

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Deep thoughts with…

Steph, Erma Bombeck & him.  Inspired by Carly 🙂

Ah the art of letting things go.  Mostly stuff, not \”mental stuff\” (although I am working on that) by actual physical true to life \”stuff\”.  I hung out with Mr. AP on Sunday which was as always wonderful.  He also just moved.  So in asking my opinion on what I would do personally to make it look more like a home per say.  I at first used the term decorate and then changed it to polish (which he said sounded less threatening) who can blame him?  After all the last thing any guy wants is a woman to waltz in to their home no less and be all heyyyyyy i\’ma going to let you finish but first I\’m going to do this that and the other thing.  He likes minimalism & who can blame him?  I do as well to a degree, but Christ I have so much stuff its UN-freaking-real!  I also hate bare walls & do love me some photography & art.  So needless to say my walls aren\’t covered in them but tastefully decorated.  So he said I was allowed to make him some art awesome!  Let\’s just hope that what I have in mind actually comes to fruition, but I think its going to look pretty damn stellar.

Anyway, its spring-ish which means spring cleaning for some.  You see, I must have inherited the pack-rat gene from my father.  I think there\’s also some psychosomatic need to  \”horde\” things because when Jeff & I split, I had nothing.  Well almost nothing.  Thanks to some good friends and  cheap rent, teamed up with working my butt off (not to mention some killer sales) I am the proud owner of things.  Except I have too many things.  I\’m sentimental like that, I like to keep reminders of times gone by.  People that have passed on & fond memories.  However when it comes to the point of consuming your precious space you need to get rid of some stuff.

Which led me to a poem by Erma Bombeck:

I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren\’t there for the day.
I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.
I would have talked less and listened more.
I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained or the sofa faded.
I would have eaten the popcorn in the \’good\’ living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.
I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.
I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.
I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.
I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching life.
I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn\’t show soil, or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.
Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I\’d have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.
When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, \”Later. Now go get washed up for dinner.\”
There would have been more \”I love you\’s.\” More \”I\’m sorry\’s.\”
But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute, look at it and really see it , live it and never give it back.

Mostly the candle comment, which oddly enough we were talking about on Sunday (something to do with wedding favors or some such) and how there\’s no point in holding onto something that you can actually use.  If that makes any sense?  Also what\’s the point of holding onto stuff that you don\’t use/want/need?  Oh right, there isn\’t.  So essentially I\’m scaling down my life some.  I cleaned out my closet (dear God what a job that was) and got rid of a ton of stuff.  I saw no point in holding onto it \”just because\” . Just because why? Its not as if its some rare one of a kind item that I can never get back again.
Also a lot of it was just taking up too much damn room.  So I\’m breaking up with \”stuff\”, if I don\’t have a practical use for it, or some hardcore emotional attachment to it, out to the curb it goes.

Normally I would donate it to charity, but seeing as I don\’t have a car craigslist will have to suffice.  I gave it a shot last weekend in spite of being sick and wouldn\’t you know it 99.5% of it was gone by morning.  That made me exceptionally happy 🙂  So going to finish off the job and get rid of the rest of it!

Clearing out all this crap makes my head that much clearer!

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um stuff?

Its 10:00am, I just had cheesecake for breakfast.  Don\’t judge me!

I thought I deserved a little self indulgence.  I\’m sick, as in dear God someone please kill me now sick.  No one\’s taking up my offers to run me over though damn you!  I blame him, him as in I was going to see you Wed but your still sick and now i\’m sick, him.  Granted I work at a daycare where runny noses are always in abundance but I\’m the Chef, not an educator so I rarely interact with the little ones very often.  There\’s a reason for that.  I had managed to stave off anything that was in fact going around the daycare, but then he was sick and we were making out in the museum on Saturday. Sigh

God damn him and all his yummy-ness!

In other news, I had a shift last night at COC that no one mentioned to me.  Fabulous!  Had it not been payday on Thursday (hooray!) and had I not contemplated taking Maximus primes Sunday shift I would have had no freaking clue.  That is until D-rock would have called me & been \”hey Steph, where the fuck are you?\” I thought about stabbing myself so I could go home early but my morals got the best of me and thought it would be best to stick it out with the new guy.  That\’s OK because new guy got one hell of a dose of Steph that he\’s not likely to forget anytime soon *smirk* heh…  I\’d write about it but i\’m currently stoned on cold medication and i\’m lazy.  Besides it was more like one of those you had to be there moments.

Anyhow moving along…

A while ago I briefly mentioned biting the bullet and contacting Jason\’s family(among other things).  Which I was hesitant to do because I don\’t know them, therefore they sure as hell don\’t know how I am either.  Grief is a funny thing & we all deal with it differently & for me its also a private matter.  OK well not too private since I\’ve been blogging about it from the get go but still.  I just know how much it hurt me personally and I couldn\’t begin to fathom how his mother would feel.  So one night at work a co-worker and myself were talking about Jason and he brother who sadly met the same demise in a similar fashion.  She made me feel better by saying that her mom loved hearing from anyone who knew her bother.  Its almost April and I was starting to wonder if my letter (yes I wrote typed out a letter and mailed it the old fashioned way) reached its destination or not.  Although I remember Jason telling me that it was a small town and well the mail service sucks, not to mention its in another country.

I came home in between jobs yesterday to feed the kids and decided to check my e-mail.  There was two in there from the same person, one containing pictures & another one where the subject line: Thank you for the beautiful letter.  I didn\’t recognize the name & at first I thought it was spam but I opened it and sure enough, it was from Jason\’s mom.  I was floored, but happy that it had arrived safely!  I was also pretty happy that she wholly supports what I aim to do which is amazing 🙂  I quote:\”  And I think, too, that if his death brings people together who can change even one other life in this world, there is new beauty and hope.\” I totally agree!  So that simple gesture made me feel 100 times better about the situation as a whole.  Not just his foundation, but the grief I\’ve been experiencing in general.  What she wrote just made everything seem OK for the first time since it happened.

Which is amazing and perhaps what I needed all along, so thank you for that.